


Unlearning

by PromisesArePieCrust



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 11:35:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9894806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PromisesArePieCrust/pseuds/PromisesArePieCrust
Summary: Some angst and romance for Fire_Sign. <3





	

“Phryne, this is hardly the time,” Jack said through a clenched jaw, tying his tie.

“It never is,” she muttered, abandoning the fine clasp of the necklace she was trying to fasten in favour of a scarf to jerk hurriedly around her neck. She dashed out of the bedroom to the top of the stairs, taking a moment to shift from piqued newlywed to gracious hostess.

Her head was spinning. She had made the wrong choice. 

It had been a pleasant time in London and a lovely journey home, and even their early weeks back in Melbourne had been good. She realised, of course, that all of this was understatement; she wouldn’t have eloped based solely on “a pleasant time and a lovely journey,” but the dizzying heights of their best times were now tempered by cool snippiness, coupled with his insistence that “nothing is wrong” in a tone that indicated that something bloody well _was_ wrong. She was doing her best to keep an even keel, trying not to overreact. Certainly some of this was normal? But at his continued silence she felt like she was left playing mind-reader—‘perhaps he needs more time alone; maybe he is craving more affection…,’ on and on until her blood ran cold at the realisation that she’d been acting like her eager-to-please, long-suffering mother. 

The dinner party was poor timing in one sense, but in another she was grateful for the distraction from the sinking awareness that she’d made a terrible mistake.

___

Throughout the dinner, he never tried to make eye contact with her, never attempted a reassuring smile. In some difficult patches in previous weeks, their lifeline of understood, quiet affection got them through the days and into the nights, where many wounds were wordlessly addressed. But tonight, he ignored her, while maintaining a sociable persona that Phyrne would never have guessed he could muster. He sat engrossed in animated conversation after conversation, and, while he was hardly sparkling, he was still the most outgoing she could ever remember him being. She felt the outrage bubble up, but squelched it with a smile. 

___

After the last guest left, her first impulse was to end the evening with a slow, imperious walk up the stairs and a silent-but-eloquent dumping of his belongings into the hall outside the bedroom. She paused, trying to decide if she should have a whiskey first; she’d been purposefully abstemious tonight while her friends had been around, for fear of dissolving into tears if a private conversation or questions about married life happened to come up. Now, there was nothing she craved more than the gentle numbness of a shot of liquor. Or likely two.

She turned and walked to the parlour, already tidied by her impressive staff. She poured a drink from the cart and heard Jack walk in behind her. The idea that this room had been an important venue in their courtship now seemed a bitter joke. “There are few things I can stomach less than a liar,” she said without turning around.

He didn’t respond initially, just sat and sighed dejectedly. “And what have I lied about?” he asked finally.

She turned to look at him, but his eyes were closed and hidden behind his hand, which was rubbing his temples. She downed her shot, waiting for him to look at her. When he didn’t, she put the glass down with a startling ‘clink.’ “I’m not sure where to start, Jack. I suppose giving the impression to everyone tonight that you are a jovial, happily remarried man.”

“It’s not a lie, Phryne.”

She waited for him to continue or to at least look at her directly, but he remained hidden behind his hand.

“You could have fooled me,” she responded as she left the room. 

She had nearly made it to the staircase when her tolerance for the tension had exhausted itself. Why had he married her in the first place? Why had she, exactly? And what had they been expecting? In the whirlwind of their romance, none of these questions had been raised, let alone answered. She had a hazy assumption that they married because they were in love, that that is what one does when deeply in love; that she wanted to go to sleep and wake up with him, that she wanted the world to know what he meant. She had married because, fight with it though she might, she still believed that it was the superlative way to tell someone you love him. She wasn’t sure what she felt now; she suspected love was buried somewhere in the misery of losing herself and in feeling like she was walking on eggshells. 

But there at the bottom of the staircase, self-preservation rose to the surface, overpowering any other emotions or motives. Love or not, she wouldn’t spend any unnecessary moments of her life in misery and uncertainty. She wouldn’t withhold her anger in the spirit of “harmony.” And though she couldn’t force him to talk, _she_ could talk, and she could tell him what was on her mind. She turned abruptly toward the parlour with her resurfaced determination and ran headlong into his chest, nearly knocking them both over.

She gasped and recuperated quickly, standing tall. 

“I don’t know how to say this,” he began, visibly upset. 

She felt the tears surface as she braced herself for the worst. _He_ had been thinking they’d made a mistake; _he_ was ready to break it off. She couldn’t have foreseen how much she wanted their relationship intact until she realised that their life together was going to end sooner than she expected, sooner than she could even empty her bedroom of his things. 

She began to shake as she was inundated with images of their times together—short and potent kisses behind pillars in Westminster Abbey; caught in the rain and giggling like fools in Paris; gently winding orchids through her hair in the heat of the tropics; long, late mornings that stretched into early afternoons in their cabin aboard the ship home. Her chin trembled as she spoke the only thought she could muster: “I love you.”

His arms swept around her in a tight embrace. “Darling,” he whispered, mouthing her chin, cheeks, ear, “darling, I love you too.” She sank some into his embrace, bits of relief sweeping over her. He began to pull her toward the parlour, but she resisted, needing to say what she intended. “Jack, you’ve been so sullen, so withdrawn,” she said as she pulled his lapels in angry fists. “It makes me so angry, and I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to respond.”

He stroked her waist, the look of relief clear across his features. “I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to hear that,” he said, nearly laughing with joy, which had Phryne’s head spinning faster than before. Had she married a madman? 

“You’ve been so changed, Phryne, nearly emotionless. It felt like you’d given up, that nothing mattered. Waiting for me to make a decision, changing direction entirely based on an off-handed comment I’d made. So much… false cheer." He met her eyes and she could see the sadness there. "I thought you’d given up,” he repeated, his voice breaking. 

“God, Jack, why didn’t you tell me any of this?” 

“I could see that you were trying to be accommodating; I didn’t want to offend you. I just didn’t know how to say it well.”

She stroked his neck and the side of his face, laughing and sniffling. “Darling, I’ll take being angry or offended over the baffling misery of the last week.” 

“God, Phryne, yes, give me your anger. I love your anger so much compared with your disinterest.” 

She sighed and rested her head against his chest, finally letting her muscles slacken. “Be patient with me. I have to unlearn what I know about marriage. I’m finding it to be a more intricate and interesting beast than what I have observed before.” 

He took her hand. “Likewise,” he said, then kissed her knuckles tenderly.


End file.
